Black Box (2020)

 Score: 2.5 / 5

Nolan's amnesia stops him from functioning well. After a deadly car crash that rendered him a single parent with few reliable memories, he has tried his best to cope. Leaving sticky notes all around with little directions or helpful hints can only work so well, despite the best efforts of his precocious young daughter Ava, who has been forced to be far too mature for her age. Unfortunately, his forgetfulness often comes across as neglect, both as a father and as an employee, and when things come to a breaking point, he opts for an experimental procedure to reclaim his memories and his life. What kind of husband was he? What kind of father should he be?

Simple questions to some, but Nolan is desperate to live again. Enter Dr. Lilian Brooks (a delicious Phylicia Rashad), whose background in neurology seems to have borne fruit in new, relatively untested forms of hypnosis. Together, they use her "black box" tool -- a sort of virtual reality that Nolan can use to explore his hidden memories -- to middling effect. Nolan does begin to remember things, but he can only see figures, not faces. And then there's the monstrous entity stalking him each time he uses the therapeutic technology. Thankfully, the brilliant Mamoudou Athie (The Front Runner, Underwater) brings a lot of heart to the role, the kind of muscled sensitivity pioneered by Guy Pearce in Memento. As things shift from emotional and psychological into the thrilling and horrific,  Athie grounds it all in fierce realism that is never less than satisfying to behold.

Director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr. works hard to balance what appears to be high-concept science fiction with a self-discovery thriller, and his efforts mostly prove effective. He leans heavily on the unsettling specter of ghostly faces in shadowy half-worlds, and the creaking, cracking spidery movements of disjointed bodies following Nolan between memories. It's very scary, but the horrific effects never overwhelm the sensation of the film. Perhaps it would have been more memorable if they had, because the plot instead focuses on unstable sci-fi logic that never becomes totally clear to the viewer. By the incredibly twisty third act, I had very little understanding of what was actually happening, between body-snatching and hypnotic possession. Not because of its complexity, but because of its opacity.

For all its attempts at any big themes -- stolen identities and memories could have been major, especially in a 2020 movie about Black people -- this film seems satisfied to be little more than a one-off diversion. A deceptively simple genre pic with more thrills than it knows how to handle, and almost no relevance to its time, place, or method of distribution (Blumhouse released it through Amazon Prime as part of its new deal with that streaming service). Don't mistake me: it's entertaining as hell, if only to watch the two leads milk their scenes like an actors' workshop. But its relentless references to other, more important movies in a similar vein (Get Out, Memento, Upgrade, just the most recent) make Black Box frustratingly forgettable.